The spice of life

So here I am in Bonn! The apartment my husband and I share is small, as you might expect in Europe, though not our smallest ever apartment. That would be the first place we lived in New York, which came in at a whopping 200 square feet. This place, while bigger, has some features that make it pretty different compared to other places I've lived.





In the lower right, you can see that the bed is lofted. In the upper right, you'll notice that there are two electric burners but no oven. Underneath the burners is the fridge, which one could call mini. On the left you can kind of see that instead of having a tub or stall for a shower, you just shower right there in the bathroom. That's the toilet on the left and there's a drain in the floor. You just squeegee the whole place down when you're through. I find it tremendously amusing.

Perhaps some of you who are reading are accustomed to such a situation, but it's really different for me. The biggest challenge is the kitchen/fridge combo, as well as the limitation on kinds of ingredients available here, the result of which is the revival of my college student menu. Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup forever!

But what about yarn? I am happy to let you know that I packed a lot of yarn and fiber coming here. Behold:



Have you ever gone on a trip and only brought one book to read, so that you'd finally read it after all these years passing it over in favor of other books? I did that once, with Anna Karenina, and I'm doing it a little bit here with yarn, in particular the kitchen cotton on the right and the marled wool on the left. Those are projects for which I want the finished product, but I'm not particularly excited about the actual knitting.

In a moment of "Why not?" I decided to cast on a whole bunch of things, because I had the needles for them and without home internet access (yet) or television or even English language radio, it's good to feel like I have a lot of options for my entertainment at home.




More on these projects as I work on them more. I have to say, I'm really enjoying having this many choices, especially considering I also have my on-the-go socks and a couple of spinning projects.



Variety, it's the spice of life! So is curry ketchup, incidentally, which I may be mailing back to myself when I move back to the US...